Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library

"Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library"
Don Borchert
Virgin Books, $21.95




Don Borchert was able to do what some of us only talk about.

He wrote down his experiences with some of the oddballs he encountered and turned it into an entertaining book that provides some insight into life on the other side of the library counter.

"Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, Gangstas in the Public Library" is a compilation of Borchert's memories of working in a public library near Los Angeles. And his experience is just as the title suggests — a library is free for all, so there are plenty of oddballs, geeks and gangstas who assemble. And they provide quite the fodder for Borchert's book.

There's Henry, who isn't quite right in the head and comes in every day to work on the crossword puzzle in the Los Angeles Times. There's Terri, the children's librarian with a heart of gold who unintentionally befriends everyone, from the 'tween girls doing their homework to the mentally incapacitated Michael. There's Mr. Jackson, who expects the librarian checking out his books to stack them in alphabetical order and put the receipt in the second book from the top, sticking out no more than a half an inch. Not to mention the two men who were caught dealing drugs via a vent in the men's rest room.

Anyone who has worked with the public will appreciate and relate to Borchert's commentary on the comedy everyday people unknowingly bring to life.

Borchert also sheds light on what seems to be the obvious — libraries will lend you thousands of dollars worth of materials, no questions asked, so pay your damn $2 fine! (He has motivated me to pay a visit to my hometown library and pay the $0.40 in fines I owe, while renewing my card that expired almost a year ago.)

The writing is simple; the chapters are short. The observations are obvious and entertainingly portrayed. Borchert has managed to make me both excited and anxious for a career as a librarian.

However, I find difficulty in recommending this book broadly because I'm not sure how many people would be entertained by reading about the crazy antics occurring in the library. Many people find libraries boring and may subsequently be bored by this book, simply based on it's setting.

The book is amusing and clever and charming, but it will never receive the praise or readership it deserves. Because it is about life in the library.

The Choice

"The Choice"
Nicholas Sparks
Grand Central Publishing, $24.99





Nicholas Sparks is at it again in his latest novel, "The Choice." Surprise, surprise, this book is a love story in which the man and woman must overcome an obstacle to figure out how strong their love is.

Travis Parker is ever the bachelor, whose world is turned upside down when he meets Gabby Holland. She is the uptight Southern belle hoping to break out of her shell, and Travis is the motorcycle-riding surfer to help her do so. Of course, Gabby has a boyfriend and must decide between the two — she must make "the choice." (And anyone who has read Nicholas Sparks, or even those who haven't, can predict the choice she makes.)

But that is only the choice in "Part One." "Part Two" includes an arguably more difficult choice, one that makes reading that far into the book actually worth it.

Sparks writes in third person, but the problem comes with who is telling the story. Sometimes it's Travis, sometimes it's Gabby. The person who tells the story is whoever is the most convenient person to tell the story at that time, without any rhyme or reason as to why the switch. The book is framed as though it's from Travis' perspective because he tells the prologue and starts the book, then Part Two is entirely Travis, as is the epilogue. The only reason Sparks even has Gabby tell any of the story is to illustrate how she is faced with "the choice," because how would Travis know what is going through her mind?

But Sparks definitely did not choose the best way to tell the story. Part One is only a flashback to 11 years earlier, and the reader finds out in Part Two that it was Travis' flashback — so how was the story being told from Gabby's perspective?

If the reader can look past that, it is difficult to get through the 180 pages that constitute Part One. It's a boring love story, typical to Sparks' novels. The story could have been stronger if the book was set up more like a Jodi Picoult novel — beginning in the present and flashing back to the incident 11 years earlier that brought the characters to all of the choices they have to make. Reading those 180 pages is painfully boring because there is no noticeable reason to do so.

Getting to Part Two is only rewarding because the book actually gets exciting. But then the story suffers. Sparks includes more story in those 72 pages than in the rest of the book, weakening the ending because there is not enough space to cram in everything he still has left to say.

Sparks also hammers the choice theme throughout Part Two — reminiscent of the way a college student might try to hurry up and finish a final paper by using the key words as many time as possible. It gets redundant, and again, the ultimate choice and outcome of the book are predictable.

The worst choice in the book is made in Part Two. Human nature is to see the characters who make the poorest choices suffer the worst punishments and learn from it, but the character making this choice hardly seems to see any sort of reprimand for the decisions made because Sparks had to hurry up through that part to finish the story.

I can only guess that Sparks took so long to get to the point of his novel because he wanted to have a major plot twist in the end. Sparks' fans will be shocked and fascinated and fall in love with the novel, but it's boring to those of us who have grown tired of his bland language and love-trumps-everything theme.

You can make a better choice than reading this book.